R&D was the genesis that launched Northern Electric from the sleepy Canadian branch plant to a publicly traded company with a market cap of more than $300B, $30B in sales, and 100,000 employees worldwide. The lessons learned from my Nortel experience... “Innovate or Die“

By John F. Tyson

3 - Creating an Identity

"The name should honor parentage and the product. Parentage: Bell and Northern. Product: Research. As simple as that we named it: Bell-Northern Research, to be later reduced to the familiar BNR. … We may not have foreseen that we had just given birth to what would become one of the most innovative and widely respected research-and-development organizations in the world. ... I scribbled in my lab book: “Without reach, there is no challenge. Without risk, there is no reward. Without vision, there is no future.” True to this day, it applies to every company and to any entrepreneurial start-up. Without vision, there is no future."